Kennedy is the biggest Lefty Blowhard of them all. Notice how he is disjointed and spurious on this issue. He has no workable plan, he just wants to pull on the heartstrings of America and dig the President at the same time. This guy is a lefty partisan buffoon and shouldn't be taken seriously.
Talk simmers in Congress of plans for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq
By Liz Sidoti, Associated Press Writer
January 27, 2005
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Talk of withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq is simmering on Capitol Hill.
It’s mostly from Democrats -- Edward Kennedy on Thursday became the first senator to say "we must begin" withdrawal -- but Republicans, too, expect the discussion to increase as an Iraqi government takes shape and Congress considers more billions of dollars for the war.
President Bush won’t set a timetable and Iraq’s interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, says it’s too soon to talk about American forces leaving.
Friday, January 28, 2005
Can the Idiot Left Biased Media Get More Stupid?
Can the media be any more stupid about this? Critizing the choice of clothing of our Vice President when attending a ceremony in a blizzard and miss the importance of his attendance? Can you get more lame? Read on.
Cheney's green parka and boots stand out
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, center, is flanked by his wife Lynne, rigth, and Israel's President Moshe Katsav, left, when leaders from 30 countries gather to remember the victims of the Holocaust on the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazis' Auschwitz death camp by Soviet troops in Oswiecim, southern Poland on Thursday, Jan. 27, 2005. (AP Photo/Herbert Knosowski)
OSWIECIM, Poland -- Vice President Dick Cheney's utilitarian hooded parka and boots stood out amid the solemn formality of a ceremony commemorating the liberation of Nazi death camps, raising eyebrows among the fashion-conscious.
Cheney replaced the zipped-to-the-neck green parka he sported in Thursday's blowing snow and freezing wind with a more traditional black coat - red tie and gray scarf showing underneath - for his tour of Auschwitz on Friday.
Washington Post fashion writer Robin Givhan described Cheney's look at the deeply moving 60th anniversary service as "the kind of attire one typically wears to operate a snow blower."
"Cheney stood out in a sea of black-coated world leaders because he was wearing an olive drab parka with a fur-trimmed hood," Givhan wrote in Friday's Post, also mocking Cheney's knit ski cap embroidered with the words "Staff 2001" and his brown, lace-up hiking boots. "The vice president looked like an awkward child amid the well-dressed adults," she said.
'
I think these self important clowns are about as relevant as tits on a boar hog when it comes to the Vice President's choice of clothing. I wonder what they wear to work on a day that it is snowing so hard you can't see 3 feet. I'll bet they wear a similar outfit. If they don't then they are truly idiots.
Cheney's green parka and boots stand out
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, center, is flanked by his wife Lynne, rigth, and Israel's President Moshe Katsav, left, when leaders from 30 countries gather to remember the victims of the Holocaust on the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazis' Auschwitz death camp by Soviet troops in Oswiecim, southern Poland on Thursday, Jan. 27, 2005. (AP Photo/Herbert Knosowski)
OSWIECIM, Poland -- Vice President Dick Cheney's utilitarian hooded parka and boots stood out amid the solemn formality of a ceremony commemorating the liberation of Nazi death camps, raising eyebrows among the fashion-conscious.
Cheney replaced the zipped-to-the-neck green parka he sported in Thursday's blowing snow and freezing wind with a more traditional black coat - red tie and gray scarf showing underneath - for his tour of Auschwitz on Friday.
Washington Post fashion writer Robin Givhan described Cheney's look at the deeply moving 60th anniversary service as "the kind of attire one typically wears to operate a snow blower."
"Cheney stood out in a sea of black-coated world leaders because he was wearing an olive drab parka with a fur-trimmed hood," Givhan wrote in Friday's Post, also mocking Cheney's knit ski cap embroidered with the words "Staff 2001" and his brown, lace-up hiking boots. "The vice president looked like an awkward child amid the well-dressed adults," she said.
'
I think these self important clowns are about as relevant as tits on a boar hog when it comes to the Vice President's choice of clothing. I wonder what they wear to work on a day that it is snowing so hard you can't see 3 feet. I'll bet they wear a similar outfit. If they don't then they are truly idiots.
Thursday, January 27, 2005
What the Government Is Still Hiding About the War on Terror.
Wow! If this is true, it is certainly scary and compelling proof that things were set in motion long before 9/11 to destroy America and it's people by the Islamofascists. A excerpt of the interview follows. Click on the title to read the entire interview.
FP: Mr. Lance, welcome to Frontpage InterviewLance: Great to be talking with you.FP: What motivated you to write this book?
Lance: Cover Up began as an effort to answer the two big unanswered questions left after I had finished 1000 Years of Revenge. To get an overview of my findings in that book, your readers can sample the 32 page illustrated Timeline from 1000 YEARS at my website under “Terrorism.”
Like the book, the Timeline goes back 12 years to 1989 and traces al Qaeda's treacherous development of the 9/11 plot, focusing primarily on the how the New York office of the FBI (NYO) the Osama bin Laden "office of origin," failed repeatedly to interdict the plot.The two big questions, which I sought to answer at the end of that book were:1) Why did the U.S. Justice Department ignore probative evidence from the Philippines National Police (PNP) in 1995 that Ramzi Yousef, the original World Trade Center bomber, had conspired with his uncle Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (KSM) as early as 1994 to set in motion the plot that culminated on 9/11? In the spring of 1995, Col. Rodolfo B. Mendoza, a leading PNP investigator who had interrogated Yousef's lifelong friend and co-conspirator, Abdul Hakim Murad, gave the U.S. Embassy in Manila evidence that Yousef and KSM already had chosen had six targets: the WTC, The Pentagon, CIA HQ at Langley, VA, The Sears Tower in Chicago, the Transamerica Tower in San Francisco and an unnamed nuclear facility. Col. Mendoza also had evidence that up to 10 Islamic radicals were then training in U.S. flight schools. This was 1995.I found FBI NO/FORN memos from that year proving that the Bureau had this intelligence, but they dropped the ball. I wanted to find out why. It should be noted that the detailed intelligence from Col. Mendoza was for a plot involving the hijacking of airliners that was completely distinct from the Bojinka plot in which Yousef, KSM, Murad and a 4th conspirator, Wali Kahn Amin Shah, planned to plant Casio watch powered-nitroglycerine bomb triggers aboard up to a dozens U.S. jumbo jets exiting Asia with U.S. tourists.That plot went way beyond the initial plane to hijack a small plane and fly it, laden with explosives, into CIA Headquarters, an early scenario which Murad had discussed with Col. Mendoza in the early days of his 67 day interrogation. Yousef had even undertaken a "west test" bombing of a Casio Nitro device which he planted under a seat in the 26th row of Philippine Airlines Flight #434 on the morning of December 11, 1994.Planted on the first leg of a two-leg flights, Yousef got on board, pieced together the apparently innocuous components of the bomb and exited the flight after hiding it in the life jacket pouch below seat 26K. He mistakenly believed that the center wing fuel tank of the 747-100 began at the 26th row.In fact that tank runs below the 17th to 25th rows. So Yousef was a few feet two short.Nonetheless, after he exiting, while PAL #434 was heading toward Japan, his device exploded with such force that it blew a hole in the passenger floor and killed Haruki Ikegami, a 24 year old Japanese national in seat 26 K.The heroic pilot was able to get the plane on the ground. But now Yousef knew that if he and his cohorts merely moved the devices FORWARD a few rows, the downward blast would ignite the fuel tanks, turning the jumbo jets into flying bombs. They intended to do this on up to 12 flights when they had a fire in their Manila bomb factory on the night of January 6th, 1995 and the Bojinka plot was foiled.However, at the same time that they plotted Bojinka (and a third plot to kill the Pope who was to arrive in Manila in early January 1995) Yousef and KSM had well in motion the hijack-airliners-fly-them-into-buildings scenario that culminated on 9/11.Col. Mendoza, who was the Richard Clarke of The Philippines, when it came to his knowledge of Islamic radicalism, was very clear with the U.S. government and warned our officials in in the spring of 1995 of that PRECISE plot which unfolded six years later.The Justice Department seemingly failed to pursued this extraordinary warning and I wanted to know why.2) The second question left unanswered, when I had finished my first book, was why did the FBI and Justice Dept. treat the hunt for KSM so differently than the public hunt for his nephew -- which had successfully brought Yousef to ground? Yousef was arrested in early February, 1995 in a bin Laden controlled guesthouse in Islamabad, Pakistan after a tip to the U.S. State Department from an informant that Yousef had recruited. This young South African (Istaique Parker) wanted the $2 million reward being offered under a program called Rewards for Justice that was the brainchild of the late Diplomatic Security Service (DSS) agent Bradley Smith.During the two years since Yousef had fled New York on the night of the first WTC attack (February 26th, 1993) he had been the object of a worldwide public manhunt. Newsweek ran stories with banner headlines like The World’s Most Wanted and the State Dept. even printed posters touting the $2 million reward on matchbook covers that they circulated by the thousands through the middle east.Parker finally gave up Yousef, but the day he was arrested by DSS and DEA agents on February 7, 1995, I recounted in my first book, how an FBI agent got to the 20 room guesthouse late and blew a chance to grab Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who was staying in a ground floor room. In fact, KSM was so audacious that he gave an interview to Time magazine on the Yousef takedown using his own name "Khalid Shaikh." But by the time FBI agent Brad Garrett got there KSM was gone.This didn't stop Garrett from participating in a 60 Minutes II story in the fall of 2001 in which he took false credit for the Yousef takedown.Meanwhile, back in 1995, rather than doing a Wild West style worldwide search using the same rewards posters that had brought Yousef down, the Justice Dept. changed tack. For unknown reasons they indicted KSM along with Yousef in 1996 but kept the indictment sealed and his name from the press.
FP: Mr. Lance, welcome to Frontpage InterviewLance: Great to be talking with you.FP: What motivated you to write this book?
Lance: Cover Up began as an effort to answer the two big unanswered questions left after I had finished 1000 Years of Revenge. To get an overview of my findings in that book, your readers can sample the 32 page illustrated Timeline from 1000 YEARS at my website under “Terrorism.”
Like the book, the Timeline goes back 12 years to 1989 and traces al Qaeda's treacherous development of the 9/11 plot, focusing primarily on the how the New York office of the FBI (NYO) the Osama bin Laden "office of origin," failed repeatedly to interdict the plot.The two big questions, which I sought to answer at the end of that book were:1) Why did the U.S. Justice Department ignore probative evidence from the Philippines National Police (PNP) in 1995 that Ramzi Yousef, the original World Trade Center bomber, had conspired with his uncle Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (KSM) as early as 1994 to set in motion the plot that culminated on 9/11? In the spring of 1995, Col. Rodolfo B. Mendoza, a leading PNP investigator who had interrogated Yousef's lifelong friend and co-conspirator, Abdul Hakim Murad, gave the U.S. Embassy in Manila evidence that Yousef and KSM already had chosen had six targets: the WTC, The Pentagon, CIA HQ at Langley, VA, The Sears Tower in Chicago, the Transamerica Tower in San Francisco and an unnamed nuclear facility. Col. Mendoza also had evidence that up to 10 Islamic radicals were then training in U.S. flight schools. This was 1995.I found FBI NO/FORN memos from that year proving that the Bureau had this intelligence, but they dropped the ball. I wanted to find out why. It should be noted that the detailed intelligence from Col. Mendoza was for a plot involving the hijacking of airliners that was completely distinct from the Bojinka plot in which Yousef, KSM, Murad and a 4th conspirator, Wali Kahn Amin Shah, planned to plant Casio watch powered-nitroglycerine bomb triggers aboard up to a dozens U.S. jumbo jets exiting Asia with U.S. tourists.That plot went way beyond the initial plane to hijack a small plane and fly it, laden with explosives, into CIA Headquarters, an early scenario which Murad had discussed with Col. Mendoza in the early days of his 67 day interrogation. Yousef had even undertaken a "west test" bombing of a Casio Nitro device which he planted under a seat in the 26th row of Philippine Airlines Flight #434 on the morning of December 11, 1994.Planted on the first leg of a two-leg flights, Yousef got on board, pieced together the apparently innocuous components of the bomb and exited the flight after hiding it in the life jacket pouch below seat 26K. He mistakenly believed that the center wing fuel tank of the 747-100 began at the 26th row.In fact that tank runs below the 17th to 25th rows. So Yousef was a few feet two short.Nonetheless, after he exiting, while PAL #434 was heading toward Japan, his device exploded with such force that it blew a hole in the passenger floor and killed Haruki Ikegami, a 24 year old Japanese national in seat 26 K.The heroic pilot was able to get the plane on the ground. But now Yousef knew that if he and his cohorts merely moved the devices FORWARD a few rows, the downward blast would ignite the fuel tanks, turning the jumbo jets into flying bombs. They intended to do this on up to 12 flights when they had a fire in their Manila bomb factory on the night of January 6th, 1995 and the Bojinka plot was foiled.However, at the same time that they plotted Bojinka (and a third plot to kill the Pope who was to arrive in Manila in early January 1995) Yousef and KSM had well in motion the hijack-airliners-fly-them-into-buildings scenario that culminated on 9/11.Col. Mendoza, who was the Richard Clarke of The Philippines, when it came to his knowledge of Islamic radicalism, was very clear with the U.S. government and warned our officials in in the spring of 1995 of that PRECISE plot which unfolded six years later.The Justice Department seemingly failed to pursued this extraordinary warning and I wanted to know why.2) The second question left unanswered, when I had finished my first book, was why did the FBI and Justice Dept. treat the hunt for KSM so differently than the public hunt for his nephew -- which had successfully brought Yousef to ground? Yousef was arrested in early February, 1995 in a bin Laden controlled guesthouse in Islamabad, Pakistan after a tip to the U.S. State Department from an informant that Yousef had recruited. This young South African (Istaique Parker) wanted the $2 million reward being offered under a program called Rewards for Justice that was the brainchild of the late Diplomatic Security Service (DSS) agent Bradley Smith.During the two years since Yousef had fled New York on the night of the first WTC attack (February 26th, 1993) he had been the object of a worldwide public manhunt. Newsweek ran stories with banner headlines like The World’s Most Wanted and the State Dept. even printed posters touting the $2 million reward on matchbook covers that they circulated by the thousands through the middle east.Parker finally gave up Yousef, but the day he was arrested by DSS and DEA agents on February 7, 1995, I recounted in my first book, how an FBI agent got to the 20 room guesthouse late and blew a chance to grab Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who was staying in a ground floor room. In fact, KSM was so audacious that he gave an interview to Time magazine on the Yousef takedown using his own name "Khalid Shaikh." But by the time FBI agent Brad Garrett got there KSM was gone.This didn't stop Garrett from participating in a 60 Minutes II story in the fall of 2001 in which he took false credit for the Yousef takedown.Meanwhile, back in 1995, rather than doing a Wild West style worldwide search using the same rewards posters that had brought Yousef down, the Justice Dept. changed tack. For unknown reasons they indicted KSM along with Yousef in 1996 but kept the indictment sealed and his name from the press.
The 'No Government Spin' Legislation Idea is looking pretty good at this point.
The more I think about this legislation the more I like the idea. It would counter the government's spin factory no matter who was in power. I believe the current administration did make a mistake in hiring pundits to promote thier cause at my expense. I don't like state sponsored bias. If we get a decent law out of the idea it would be a definite good thing for the American people. Read on.
Sens. to Introduce 'Stop Government Propaganda Act'
credit: Aya Kawano
By Brian Orloff Published: January 27, 2005 12:10 PM ET
NEW YORK In response to continued revelations of government-funded "journalism" -- ranging from the purported video news releases put out by the drug czar's office and the Department of Health and Human Services to the recently uncovered payments to columnists Armstrong Williams and Maggie Gallagher,who flacked administration programs -- Sens. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Frank R. Lautenberg (D-N.J.) will introduce a bill, The Stop Government Propaganda Act, in the Senate next week."It's just not enough to say, 'Please don't do it anymore,'" Alex Formuzis, Lautenberg's spokesman, told E&P. "Legislation sometimes is required and we believe it is in this case."The Stop Government Propaganda Act states, "Funds appropriated to an Executive branch agency may not be used for publicity or propaganda purposes within the United States unless authorized by law.""It's time for Congress to shut down the Administration's propaganda mill," Lautenberg said in a statement. "It has no place in the United States Government." The bill is co-sponsored by Sens. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) and Jon Corzine (D-N.J.). Formuzis told E&P that while the bill is being introduced by Democrats, its message and intent is something endorsed by Republicans and Democrats alike."We only have a few senators on the bill so far, but we hope and expect that we'll get a number of others to sign on to the legislation once we introduce it," he said. "This is not a Republican or Democratic issue. This is an issue about an independent press, and I think that's something that will cross party lines."The act would allow citizens to bring qui tam lawsuits on behalf of the United States government when the Department of Justice does not respond. If the matter is taken to court, the bill proposes that the senior official responsible would be fined three times the amount of the "misspent taxpayer funds" plus an additional fine ranging from $5,000 to $10,000. And if a citizen's qui tam suit is accepted, the bill proposes that the plaintiff receives between 25 and 30% of the proceeds of the fine."The President said that his cabinet agencies made a mistake when they paid commentators to promote his agenda," Kennedy said in a statement. "It's more than just a mistake, it's an abuse of taxpayer funds and an abuse of the First Amendment and freedom of the press. ... If the President is serious about stopping these abuses, he will support this legislation."According to a release, publicity or propaganda is defined in the bill as: news releases or publications that do not clearly identify the government agency responsible for the content; audio/visual or Internet presentations that do not identify the responsible government agency; any attempt to manipulate journalists or news organizations; messages created to aid a political party or candidate; messages with a "self-aggrandizing" purpose or "puffery of the Administration, agency, executive branch programs or policies or pending legislation"; and, finally, messages that are "so misleading or inaccurate that they constitute propaganda."
Sens. to Introduce 'Stop Government Propaganda Act'
credit: Aya Kawano
By Brian Orloff Published: January 27, 2005 12:10 PM ET
NEW YORK In response to continued revelations of government-funded "journalism" -- ranging from the purported video news releases put out by the drug czar's office and the Department of Health and Human Services to the recently uncovered payments to columnists Armstrong Williams and Maggie Gallagher,who flacked administration programs -- Sens. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Frank R. Lautenberg (D-N.J.) will introduce a bill, The Stop Government Propaganda Act, in the Senate next week."It's just not enough to say, 'Please don't do it anymore,'" Alex Formuzis, Lautenberg's spokesman, told E&P. "Legislation sometimes is required and we believe it is in this case."The Stop Government Propaganda Act states, "Funds appropriated to an Executive branch agency may not be used for publicity or propaganda purposes within the United States unless authorized by law.""It's time for Congress to shut down the Administration's propaganda mill," Lautenberg said in a statement. "It has no place in the United States Government." The bill is co-sponsored by Sens. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) and Jon Corzine (D-N.J.). Formuzis told E&P that while the bill is being introduced by Democrats, its message and intent is something endorsed by Republicans and Democrats alike."We only have a few senators on the bill so far, but we hope and expect that we'll get a number of others to sign on to the legislation once we introduce it," he said. "This is not a Republican or Democratic issue. This is an issue about an independent press, and I think that's something that will cross party lines."The act would allow citizens to bring qui tam lawsuits on behalf of the United States government when the Department of Justice does not respond. If the matter is taken to court, the bill proposes that the senior official responsible would be fined three times the amount of the "misspent taxpayer funds" plus an additional fine ranging from $5,000 to $10,000. And if a citizen's qui tam suit is accepted, the bill proposes that the plaintiff receives between 25 and 30% of the proceeds of the fine."The President said that his cabinet agencies made a mistake when they paid commentators to promote his agenda," Kennedy said in a statement. "It's more than just a mistake, it's an abuse of taxpayer funds and an abuse of the First Amendment and freedom of the press. ... If the President is serious about stopping these abuses, he will support this legislation."According to a release, publicity or propaganda is defined in the bill as: news releases or publications that do not clearly identify the government agency responsible for the content; audio/visual or Internet presentations that do not identify the responsible government agency; any attempt to manipulate journalists or news organizations; messages created to aid a political party or candidate; messages with a "self-aggrandizing" purpose or "puffery of the Administration, agency, executive branch programs or policies or pending legislation"; and, finally, messages that are "so misleading or inaccurate that they constitute propaganda."
Wednesday, January 26, 2005
Roger, I could not have said it better.
Roger Olsen has a very good point here and he says it in a way that puts things into perspective. Please read on.
Bush aversion
Isn't it interesting that liberals thought ending subjugation of women worldwide was a worthwhile goal, until Bush made it happen in Afghanistan and Iraq? That black, Latin and other minority voices in high government and judicial offices was a noble endeavor, until Bush made it the norm? That Social Security was in crisis, until Bush stepped on that "third rail" and attempted to provide actual long-term benefits?
That "God" and "worldwide liberty" were just fine in the inaugural addresses of FDR, Truman and JFK, but Bush's mention deserves scrutiny and doubt. And that Bush's ambitious fulfillment of campaign promises is denigrated as hubris. Any wonder the liberal left has moved the Democrats out of favor, out of touch and out of office?
Roger Olsen
Burbank
Bush aversion
Isn't it interesting that liberals thought ending subjugation of women worldwide was a worthwhile goal, until Bush made it happen in Afghanistan and Iraq? That black, Latin and other minority voices in high government and judicial offices was a noble endeavor, until Bush made it the norm? That Social Security was in crisis, until Bush stepped on that "third rail" and attempted to provide actual long-term benefits?
That "God" and "worldwide liberty" were just fine in the inaugural addresses of FDR, Truman and JFK, but Bush's mention deserves scrutiny and doubt. And that Bush's ambitious fulfillment of campaign promises is denigrated as hubris. Any wonder the liberal left has moved the Democrats out of favor, out of touch and out of office?
Roger Olsen
Burbank
The Usual Lefty Suspects Are incredibly Stupid
More Lefty entertainment. Don't they realize how stupid they appear when stooping to such low partisan attacks over nothing and lying all the way? I really hope they never get it as it could mean the end of their tenure. Getting them voted out of office is getting easier and easier. Read on.
Democrats Slam Rice, But Senate Approval Assured
Jan 25, 8:14 PM (ET)
By Vicki Allen
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A group of Senate Democrats opposing the nomination of Condoleezza Rice as U.S. secretary of state on Tuesday accused her of deceiving Congress and called her an architect of blunders in the Iraq war.
But Republicans, jumping to Rice's defense, said Democrats were grandstanding since Rice was certain to be confirmed in the post by a full Senate vote on Wednesday.
Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy called Rice "a key member of the national security team that developed and justified the rationale for war, and it's been a catastrophic failure, a continuing quagmire."
Sen. Mark Dayton of Minnesota said Rice "misled the people of Minnesota and Americans everywhere about the situation in Iraq, before and after that war began." He added: "I really don't like being lied to repeatedly, flagrantly, intentionally."
Republicans rose to defend Rice, who for four years has been Bush's national security adviser and appears set to become the first black woman to head U.S. foreign policy.
Sen. John Cornyn of Texas accused Democrats of "inappropriate partisan attacks against a nominee who deserves our respect," and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska proclaimed it "a nomination all of America can be proud of."
While most lawmakers who opposed Rice were long-standing critics of the war, Indiana Democrat Evan Bayh, who backed the invasion, also said he would vote against her.
Read the entire article here:
http://reuters.myway.com/article/20050126/2005-01-26T011422Z_01_N25379705_RTRIDST_0_NEWS-CONGRESS-RICE-DC.html
Democrats Slam Rice, But Senate Approval Assured
Jan 25, 8:14 PM (ET)
By Vicki Allen
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A group of Senate Democrats opposing the nomination of Condoleezza Rice as U.S. secretary of state on Tuesday accused her of deceiving Congress and called her an architect of blunders in the Iraq war.
But Republicans, jumping to Rice's defense, said Democrats were grandstanding since Rice was certain to be confirmed in the post by a full Senate vote on Wednesday.
Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy called Rice "a key member of the national security team that developed and justified the rationale for war, and it's been a catastrophic failure, a continuing quagmire."
Sen. Mark Dayton of Minnesota said Rice "misled the people of Minnesota and Americans everywhere about the situation in Iraq, before and after that war began." He added: "I really don't like being lied to repeatedly, flagrantly, intentionally."
Republicans rose to defend Rice, who for four years has been Bush's national security adviser and appears set to become the first black woman to head U.S. foreign policy.
Sen. John Cornyn of Texas accused Democrats of "inappropriate partisan attacks against a nominee who deserves our respect," and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska proclaimed it "a nomination all of America can be proud of."
While most lawmakers who opposed Rice were long-standing critics of the war, Indiana Democrat Evan Bayh, who backed the invasion, also said he would vote against her.
Read the entire article here:
http://reuters.myway.com/article/20050126/2005-01-26T011422Z_01_N25379705_RTRIDST_0_NEWS-CONGRESS-RICE-DC.html
Monday, January 24, 2005
Wear Protective Clothing! Liberals Do Spew.
This really puts into perspective the problem I have with Regressives and wacko Lefties. Joan nails 'em right between their running drivel.
Cows Moo, Liberals Spew
Joan Swirsky
Friday, Jan. 21, 2005
NewsMax
How astonished would you be if you turned on your household faucet and champagne – or, for that matter, Pepto Bismol – flowed out? Or if you went to a farm and a cow came forth with an oink? Pretty dumbfounded, I think.That’s because all over the world, water faucets bring forth water and cows moo – just as maple trees produce maple syrup, religious leaders preach their faith, and pianists play, well, the piano.
Story Continues Below
Invariably and predictably, mechanisms like faucets and species like plants or animals (including humans) are what they are and do what they do. Technology may change from day to day, but Mother Nature never lies. All one has to do is observe the behavior of a particular species to know what it’s all about.
The Political Species
For instance, conservatives are interested in preserving time-tested traditions as well as gathering the kind of hard data that leads to a balance of funds and resources between social programs and maintaining our country’s safety and security. So their behavior – what they say and do – is to campaign and vote for these principals. That is why liberals often think of them as “mean.”
In contrast, liberals seem exclusively interested in those they consider the victims of society and in convincing the masses that, in fact, all of them are victims! This includes, among others, people unhappy with their medical care, those who choose to have eight or nine kids without marriage or a job, and those who cross our borders illegally. So their behavior is to campaign and speak their socialist cant on behalf of these “injured parties.”
Their strategy is to appeal to every aggrieved person in America, promise them the world and – if history is any measure – deliver them nothing! This is why conservatives often think of them as “clueless.” And why Winston Churchill said, "Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy; its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery."
Liberals think they are much smarter than ordinary people and therefore should control every aspect of their lives, especially their money and, by association, their own money! It’s worth mentioning that the very members of the party fighting Social Security reform fail to tell their constituents that they, as legislators, would lose the privilege of NOT paying into Social Security and still garnering a generous stipend from the government for the rest of their lives – even if they’ve served only one term!
All you need to know about what is so misguided, ignorant and even treasonous about liberals can be found in observing their behavior. Simply, watch them spew! One hundred percent of the time, their repertoire is limited to venom toward anyone who disagrees with them and toward their own country!
They can’t help it. Their worldview is based on pure narcissism – the notion that they are so intellectually superior and morally evolved that anyone who strays from their worldview is more than worthy of their bile. This is the definition of narcissism – a serious mental malady, by the way – that is characterized by obsession with the all-important self, an allergic intolerance to and irrational lashing-out at any dissent, an exaggerated sense of self-importance (coupled, interestingly, with frequent thoughts of suicide) and an insatiable need to be accepted and admired for who they are, as opposed, significantly, to what they stand for.
When people disagree with them – as they did in the past two presidential and congressional elections – they become consumed with rage. And like angry volcanoes, they spew hot lava.
Let’s take a few recent events.
The Spewer-in-Chief
Like other people around the globe, President Bush learned of the devastating tsunami in Asia from the “experts,” who initially said the death toll was 5,000. Being a thoughtful and prudent man who demands empirical evidence before acting, the president immediately allocated a generous $15 million for relief. This while France and other “philanthropic” countries were helping the victims with mere thousands!
But as the days passed and the death and devastation toll grew, the president more than doubled U.S. aid to $35 million, and, as more data flowed in, he announced that our government would contribute a whopping $350 million – with more to come, he said, possibly up to a billion dollars or higher.
And how did the still-depressed and enraged liberal Democrats respond? By spewing their typically bogus and always-negative “talking points” about the president’s "late" response, about the comparative cost of his inauguration (which is paid for by private donations) and about the need for more body armor for our troops (which they know is a matter of production efficiency – or, in this case, inefficiency).
A majority of the American public knows all this, which is why they gave President Bush a decisive victory over his famously waffling opponent, John Kerry – who no doubt agrees with his fellow leftists that Bush himself caused the tsunami!
Proving that he is still America’s Spewer-in-Chief, Kerry, on a recent trip to Baghdad, could not resist the opportunity to demoralize our troops – a tactic he perfected when he slandered his fellow veterans after the Vietnam War. He told the men and women who are fighting – and dying – for our country that their efforts were a result of a president who made "horrendous judgments" and "unbelievable blunders."
Then he visited President Bashir Assad of Syria, the dictator who protects terrorists and has done nothing to stop them from crossing into Iraq to kill American soldiers. Regarding this butcher’s regime, Kerry proclaimed that the U.S. and Syria have “areas of mutual interest.” Really?
Kerry also traveled to Ramallah, evoking his pet fantasy that the spectacularly ineffectual “international community” would help make peace with Israel. That means France and the rest of the European Union that has, historically, vilified Israel while glorifying the architect of Middle Eastern terrorism, Yasser Arafat.
Then onto infamously anti-American Cairo, where Kerry once again bad-mouthed American foreign policy before visiting France to meet with his ideological soul mate, President Jacques Chirac, chief obstructionist to America’s fight against terror.
Like the seemingly elegant vessel that contains not spring water but sludge, Kerry reinforces the point that what comes out of a species is what’s inside that species. Like other liberals – who minimize good things to the size of a pea and elevate bad things to the size of a mountain – he simply can’t help himself. All that is within him – and his like-minded species – is sludge, often mixed with contaminants, toxins, pollutants, venom and raw verbal sewage.
More SPEW (Sorry Politicos Emitting Waste)
Take the president’s announcement that Condoleezza Rice was his choice for secretary of state. Predictably, liberals could not summon up one positive thing to say about this amazingly accomplished woman but instead resorted to rank racism and insults. And now, during Dr. Rice’s confirmation hearings, they have once again – led by a bitter, camera-hogging and sludge-oozing Sen. Barbara Boxer – resorted to name-calling and false accusations.
Again, they couldn’t help themselves. Vessels (as they are) may be fluted or engraved, ancient or modern, pretty or ugly – but if they contain sludge, sludge is what comes out!
Just as it has relentlessly leached out during the confirmation hearings of Judge Alberto Gonzales, the president’s choice for attorney general. Here, most if not all liberal senators (and their echo chamber in the media and the ACLU) have trumped up charges that Gonzales “supported” the torture of prisoners (“enemy” combatants) because he refused to extend the Geneva Conventions to captured terrorists.
Liberals, in other words, would like to make treaties or “negotiate” with al-Qaida and other terrorist groups in spite of the fact that they fill none of the criteria of the Geneva Conventions, i.e., having a commander responsible for subordinates, wearing formal and recognizable military insignia, carrying weapons openly, and adhering to the time-worn laws and customs of warfare.
Forget about their utter lack of identifiable leaders; their hiding and storing weapons in hospitals and mosques; their civilian clothes and facemasks; their sneak attacks, car bombs and improvised weapons; their savage beheadings and torture – and their wanton murder of Americans. Let’s talk to them, liberals insist! Let’s afford them the benefits of the Geneva Conventions!
Which only proves that the liberals’ objections to Gonzales lie more with their own obstructionist agenda and perverse vision of the real world we live in than in choosing the best man for the job.
More SPEW (Sorry Pundits Emitting Waste)
The far-left spewers among us include splenetic – and, if ratings are any measure, largely discredited – TV pundits like MSNBC’s Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann, any number of CNN’s “journalists,” NBC’s Andrea Mitchell, inveterate Clinton lackey George Stephanopoulos of ABC, CBS’s King of Spew, Dan Rather, and of course the New York Times. Those worshippers of treasonous anti-Americans like Susan Sontag (whose recently published obit was the definition of hagiography) who still think that we’re in a campaign season and that the “dumb” Republicans can be out-talked and outwitted by the sheer brilliance of their socialist insights.
And they still can’t figure out why their collective and formidable efforts to defeat the president ended in a decisive Electoral College victory for him, as well as the largest popular vote in American history.
Clearly, it’s because Americans recognized those Emperors with No Clothes and their pretense of being cloaked in journalistic integrity when, in fact, they have none. While most people in our modern age have learned how to recognize “spin,” it must be a stunning shock to today’s dying mainstream media that in the past election, our citizens also recognized – and roundly repudiated – their spew!
Of course, the left’s spewers – being the species they are – are unlikely to change. Indeed, far-left liberals like Senators Hillary Clinton, John Corzine, Harry Reid, Ted Kennedy, Barbara Boxer and Robert (Ku Klux Klan) Byrd (among many others) apparently never heard the expression “Get over it!”
They can’t. Lacking utterly in original, forward-looking ideas and with nothing more to offer than criticism wrapped in bile-soaked half-truths or downright lies, all their talk of “coming together” and “doing what’s right for the country” rings hollow, even pathetic.
They are simply too full of sludge and narcissism to think of themselves second and their country first.
Joan Swirsky is a New-York-based journalist and author who can be reached at joansharon@aol.com.
Cows Moo, Liberals Spew
Joan Swirsky
Friday, Jan. 21, 2005
NewsMax
How astonished would you be if you turned on your household faucet and champagne – or, for that matter, Pepto Bismol – flowed out? Or if you went to a farm and a cow came forth with an oink? Pretty dumbfounded, I think.That’s because all over the world, water faucets bring forth water and cows moo – just as maple trees produce maple syrup, religious leaders preach their faith, and pianists play, well, the piano.
Story Continues Below
Invariably and predictably, mechanisms like faucets and species like plants or animals (including humans) are what they are and do what they do. Technology may change from day to day, but Mother Nature never lies. All one has to do is observe the behavior of a particular species to know what it’s all about.
The Political Species
For instance, conservatives are interested in preserving time-tested traditions as well as gathering the kind of hard data that leads to a balance of funds and resources between social programs and maintaining our country’s safety and security. So their behavior – what they say and do – is to campaign and vote for these principals. That is why liberals often think of them as “mean.”
In contrast, liberals seem exclusively interested in those they consider the victims of society and in convincing the masses that, in fact, all of them are victims! This includes, among others, people unhappy with their medical care, those who choose to have eight or nine kids without marriage or a job, and those who cross our borders illegally. So their behavior is to campaign and speak their socialist cant on behalf of these “injured parties.”
Their strategy is to appeal to every aggrieved person in America, promise them the world and – if history is any measure – deliver them nothing! This is why conservatives often think of them as “clueless.” And why Winston Churchill said, "Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy; its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery."
Liberals think they are much smarter than ordinary people and therefore should control every aspect of their lives, especially their money and, by association, their own money! It’s worth mentioning that the very members of the party fighting Social Security reform fail to tell their constituents that they, as legislators, would lose the privilege of NOT paying into Social Security and still garnering a generous stipend from the government for the rest of their lives – even if they’ve served only one term!
All you need to know about what is so misguided, ignorant and even treasonous about liberals can be found in observing their behavior. Simply, watch them spew! One hundred percent of the time, their repertoire is limited to venom toward anyone who disagrees with them and toward their own country!
They can’t help it. Their worldview is based on pure narcissism – the notion that they are so intellectually superior and morally evolved that anyone who strays from their worldview is more than worthy of their bile. This is the definition of narcissism – a serious mental malady, by the way – that is characterized by obsession with the all-important self, an allergic intolerance to and irrational lashing-out at any dissent, an exaggerated sense of self-importance (coupled, interestingly, with frequent thoughts of suicide) and an insatiable need to be accepted and admired for who they are, as opposed, significantly, to what they stand for.
When people disagree with them – as they did in the past two presidential and congressional elections – they become consumed with rage. And like angry volcanoes, they spew hot lava.
Let’s take a few recent events.
The Spewer-in-Chief
Like other people around the globe, President Bush learned of the devastating tsunami in Asia from the “experts,” who initially said the death toll was 5,000. Being a thoughtful and prudent man who demands empirical evidence before acting, the president immediately allocated a generous $15 million for relief. This while France and other “philanthropic” countries were helping the victims with mere thousands!
But as the days passed and the death and devastation toll grew, the president more than doubled U.S. aid to $35 million, and, as more data flowed in, he announced that our government would contribute a whopping $350 million – with more to come, he said, possibly up to a billion dollars or higher.
And how did the still-depressed and enraged liberal Democrats respond? By spewing their typically bogus and always-negative “talking points” about the president’s "late" response, about the comparative cost of his inauguration (which is paid for by private donations) and about the need for more body armor for our troops (which they know is a matter of production efficiency – or, in this case, inefficiency).
A majority of the American public knows all this, which is why they gave President Bush a decisive victory over his famously waffling opponent, John Kerry – who no doubt agrees with his fellow leftists that Bush himself caused the tsunami!
Proving that he is still America’s Spewer-in-Chief, Kerry, on a recent trip to Baghdad, could not resist the opportunity to demoralize our troops – a tactic he perfected when he slandered his fellow veterans after the Vietnam War. He told the men and women who are fighting – and dying – for our country that their efforts were a result of a president who made "horrendous judgments" and "unbelievable blunders."
Then he visited President Bashir Assad of Syria, the dictator who protects terrorists and has done nothing to stop them from crossing into Iraq to kill American soldiers. Regarding this butcher’s regime, Kerry proclaimed that the U.S. and Syria have “areas of mutual interest.” Really?
Kerry also traveled to Ramallah, evoking his pet fantasy that the spectacularly ineffectual “international community” would help make peace with Israel. That means France and the rest of the European Union that has, historically, vilified Israel while glorifying the architect of Middle Eastern terrorism, Yasser Arafat.
Then onto infamously anti-American Cairo, where Kerry once again bad-mouthed American foreign policy before visiting France to meet with his ideological soul mate, President Jacques Chirac, chief obstructionist to America’s fight against terror.
Like the seemingly elegant vessel that contains not spring water but sludge, Kerry reinforces the point that what comes out of a species is what’s inside that species. Like other liberals – who minimize good things to the size of a pea and elevate bad things to the size of a mountain – he simply can’t help himself. All that is within him – and his like-minded species – is sludge, often mixed with contaminants, toxins, pollutants, venom and raw verbal sewage.
More SPEW (Sorry Politicos Emitting Waste)
Take the president’s announcement that Condoleezza Rice was his choice for secretary of state. Predictably, liberals could not summon up one positive thing to say about this amazingly accomplished woman but instead resorted to rank racism and insults. And now, during Dr. Rice’s confirmation hearings, they have once again – led by a bitter, camera-hogging and sludge-oozing Sen. Barbara Boxer – resorted to name-calling and false accusations.
Again, they couldn’t help themselves. Vessels (as they are) may be fluted or engraved, ancient or modern, pretty or ugly – but if they contain sludge, sludge is what comes out!
Just as it has relentlessly leached out during the confirmation hearings of Judge Alberto Gonzales, the president’s choice for attorney general. Here, most if not all liberal senators (and their echo chamber in the media and the ACLU) have trumped up charges that Gonzales “supported” the torture of prisoners (“enemy” combatants) because he refused to extend the Geneva Conventions to captured terrorists.
Liberals, in other words, would like to make treaties or “negotiate” with al-Qaida and other terrorist groups in spite of the fact that they fill none of the criteria of the Geneva Conventions, i.e., having a commander responsible for subordinates, wearing formal and recognizable military insignia, carrying weapons openly, and adhering to the time-worn laws and customs of warfare.
Forget about their utter lack of identifiable leaders; their hiding and storing weapons in hospitals and mosques; their civilian clothes and facemasks; their sneak attacks, car bombs and improvised weapons; their savage beheadings and torture – and their wanton murder of Americans. Let’s talk to them, liberals insist! Let’s afford them the benefits of the Geneva Conventions!
Which only proves that the liberals’ objections to Gonzales lie more with their own obstructionist agenda and perverse vision of the real world we live in than in choosing the best man for the job.
More SPEW (Sorry Pundits Emitting Waste)
The far-left spewers among us include splenetic – and, if ratings are any measure, largely discredited – TV pundits like MSNBC’s Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann, any number of CNN’s “journalists,” NBC’s Andrea Mitchell, inveterate Clinton lackey George Stephanopoulos of ABC, CBS’s King of Spew, Dan Rather, and of course the New York Times. Those worshippers of treasonous anti-Americans like Susan Sontag (whose recently published obit was the definition of hagiography) who still think that we’re in a campaign season and that the “dumb” Republicans can be out-talked and outwitted by the sheer brilliance of their socialist insights.
And they still can’t figure out why their collective and formidable efforts to defeat the president ended in a decisive Electoral College victory for him, as well as the largest popular vote in American history.
Clearly, it’s because Americans recognized those Emperors with No Clothes and their pretense of being cloaked in journalistic integrity when, in fact, they have none. While most people in our modern age have learned how to recognize “spin,” it must be a stunning shock to today’s dying mainstream media that in the past election, our citizens also recognized – and roundly repudiated – their spew!
Of course, the left’s spewers – being the species they are – are unlikely to change. Indeed, far-left liberals like Senators Hillary Clinton, John Corzine, Harry Reid, Ted Kennedy, Barbara Boxer and Robert (Ku Klux Klan) Byrd (among many others) apparently never heard the expression “Get over it!”
They can’t. Lacking utterly in original, forward-looking ideas and with nothing more to offer than criticism wrapped in bile-soaked half-truths or downright lies, all their talk of “coming together” and “doing what’s right for the country” rings hollow, even pathetic.
They are simply too full of sludge and narcissism to think of themselves second and their country first.
Joan Swirsky is a New-York-based journalist and author who can be reached at joansharon@aol.com.
Iraqi's Deserve the Same Civil Rights That Americans Take For Granted
The Left and NGO's constantly blast the U.S. over Civil Rights, yet say nothing about the current Klu Klux Klan like atmosphere most decent Iraqi's must face in Iraq on a daily basis. It's not even on their radar. Read on.
The Civil Rights of Iraqis
It’s a struggle we’ve been through.
By Steven Vincent
NRO - 1-24-2005
Three individuals — two foreigners, accompanied by a local guide — venture into a hotbed of insurgency in a dangerous mission to spread democracy to an oppressed people. They are waylaid on a lonely road by police sympathetic to the insurgents, and then murdered. Their deaths are intended as a warning to others who might seek to challenge the killers' reactionary ideology of tribal supremacy and religious hatred.
This, in brief, is what happened in Iraq last March to American activists Fern Holland and Robert Zangas, along with their translator Salwa Ali. Angered by the Western feminism the three were teaching to Iraqi women, paramilitary gunmen disguised as policeman stopped their vehicle at a fake checkpoint south of Baghdad and riddled it with bullets. Holland and Zangas were the first American civilians working with the CPA to die in Iraq.
Forty years before these deaths, three other civil-rights workers met similar fates in Mississippi — as the January 6 arrest of a 79-year-old preacher, Edgar Ray Killen, reminds us. Two of the victims, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman were whites from "foreign" New York; the third, James Chaney, was a black man from Meridian, Miss. On June 21, 1964, a policeman stopped the three for "speeding," holding them in custody long enough for Killen to organize two carloads of Klan members. The gunmen waited for the release of the civil-right workers, then, after a car chase, eventually caught and executed them, burying their bodies under a levy. Seven men were convicted for the murders. Killen escaped judgment when a jury deadlocked eleven to one on his conviction. (The killings formed the basis for the 1988 movie Mississippi Burning.)
I mention these two incidents in order to highlight what too many people excuse or even champion: the nature of the so-called Iraqi "insurgents." To many people in the West — especially the Michael Moore crowd — the Sunni Triangle gunmen are "guerrillas" engaged in a legitimate "resistance" against a neo-colonialist occupation. This might be true if Iraq were a mid-20th-century-style struggle for national liberation, à la Vietnam or Algeria. But it is not: The war in Iraq is more akin to the struggle for civil rights played out in America in the generations after the Civil War. And in this struggle, the insurgents play the identical role as the racists, bigots, and white supremacists who resorted to violence and murder rather than see their fellow Americans achieve equality.
When the paramilitary death squads ("insurgents" is too clean a word) kidnap and behead Iraqis who work for the reconstruction of their nation — is that not similar to an old-fashioned lynching? The message in both the south and the Sunni Triangle is certainly the same: If you challenge our power, this will be your fate. When gunmen stalk the Iraqi countryside, murdering civilians in the name of "defending their homeland," can we not see a modern-day Ku Klux Klan? They, too, were masked; they, too, mounted an "insurgency"; they, too, sought to reinstate a reactionary regime based on ethnic and religious supremacy. When a car bomb explodes, killing innocent Iraqis — do the victims not join hands across the years with the four teenage girls killed in the Birmingham church bombings? When Iraqi terrorists gun down election workers in the streets of Baghdad, can we not see, reprised before our eyes, the assassinations of Schwerner, Goodman, and Chaney, in addition to Medgar Evers and others who gave their lives in the name of democracy?
There is hardly an American today who would not shout in loud protest if such racist abominations once again took place in our country. And yet, many of us watch in silence as the exact same atrocities occur in Iraq. Especially perplexing is the silence of the Left — the people who, a generation ago, stood on the forefront of the civil-rights movement. How can they tarnish their proud legacy of fighting for democracy and equality by refusing to take sides in the same struggle 10,000 miles away? Why do they persist in claiming the fight against reactionary extremists is "unjust" and "immoral?" None of these people would for a moment praise the Ku Klux Klan — why do they legitimize the so-called "insurgents"?
Over 40 years ago, men organized by the Christian preacher Edgar Ray Killen tracked down and murdered men whose sole crime was to attempt to expand voting rights throughout the south. Two decades later, similar killers, perhaps organized by a Muslim cleric, assassinated two Americans and one Iraqi in a similar fashion. Different times, different conflicts, but the principles for which these people died — democracy, equality, and freedom — remain the same. In the 1960s, the deaths of Schwerner, Goodman, and Chaney created an uproar that helped unite the country and assisted the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. How many more innocents must Islamofascists kill in Iraq before that same outrage, that same commitment to the spread of freedom, becomes manifest? What will it take for the people of the world, particularly on the American left, to understand that this war is not about oil, U.S. imperialism, or corporate greed — but the very bedrock of democracy, civil rights?
The Civil Rights of Iraqis
It’s a struggle we’ve been through.
By Steven Vincent
NRO - 1-24-2005
Three individuals — two foreigners, accompanied by a local guide — venture into a hotbed of insurgency in a dangerous mission to spread democracy to an oppressed people. They are waylaid on a lonely road by police sympathetic to the insurgents, and then murdered. Their deaths are intended as a warning to others who might seek to challenge the killers' reactionary ideology of tribal supremacy and religious hatred.
This, in brief, is what happened in Iraq last March to American activists Fern Holland and Robert Zangas, along with their translator Salwa Ali. Angered by the Western feminism the three were teaching to Iraqi women, paramilitary gunmen disguised as policeman stopped their vehicle at a fake checkpoint south of Baghdad and riddled it with bullets. Holland and Zangas were the first American civilians working with the CPA to die in Iraq.
Forty years before these deaths, three other civil-rights workers met similar fates in Mississippi — as the January 6 arrest of a 79-year-old preacher, Edgar Ray Killen, reminds us. Two of the victims, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman were whites from "foreign" New York; the third, James Chaney, was a black man from Meridian, Miss. On June 21, 1964, a policeman stopped the three for "speeding," holding them in custody long enough for Killen to organize two carloads of Klan members. The gunmen waited for the release of the civil-right workers, then, after a car chase, eventually caught and executed them, burying their bodies under a levy. Seven men were convicted for the murders. Killen escaped judgment when a jury deadlocked eleven to one on his conviction. (The killings formed the basis for the 1988 movie Mississippi Burning.)
I mention these two incidents in order to highlight what too many people excuse or even champion: the nature of the so-called Iraqi "insurgents." To many people in the West — especially the Michael Moore crowd — the Sunni Triangle gunmen are "guerrillas" engaged in a legitimate "resistance" against a neo-colonialist occupation. This might be true if Iraq were a mid-20th-century-style struggle for national liberation, à la Vietnam or Algeria. But it is not: The war in Iraq is more akin to the struggle for civil rights played out in America in the generations after the Civil War. And in this struggle, the insurgents play the identical role as the racists, bigots, and white supremacists who resorted to violence and murder rather than see their fellow Americans achieve equality.
When the paramilitary death squads ("insurgents" is too clean a word) kidnap and behead Iraqis who work for the reconstruction of their nation — is that not similar to an old-fashioned lynching? The message in both the south and the Sunni Triangle is certainly the same: If you challenge our power, this will be your fate. When gunmen stalk the Iraqi countryside, murdering civilians in the name of "defending their homeland," can we not see a modern-day Ku Klux Klan? They, too, were masked; they, too, mounted an "insurgency"; they, too, sought to reinstate a reactionary regime based on ethnic and religious supremacy. When a car bomb explodes, killing innocent Iraqis — do the victims not join hands across the years with the four teenage girls killed in the Birmingham church bombings? When Iraqi terrorists gun down election workers in the streets of Baghdad, can we not see, reprised before our eyes, the assassinations of Schwerner, Goodman, and Chaney, in addition to Medgar Evers and others who gave their lives in the name of democracy?
There is hardly an American today who would not shout in loud protest if such racist abominations once again took place in our country. And yet, many of us watch in silence as the exact same atrocities occur in Iraq. Especially perplexing is the silence of the Left — the people who, a generation ago, stood on the forefront of the civil-rights movement. How can they tarnish their proud legacy of fighting for democracy and equality by refusing to take sides in the same struggle 10,000 miles away? Why do they persist in claiming the fight against reactionary extremists is "unjust" and "immoral?" None of these people would for a moment praise the Ku Klux Klan — why do they legitimize the so-called "insurgents"?
Over 40 years ago, men organized by the Christian preacher Edgar Ray Killen tracked down and murdered men whose sole crime was to attempt to expand voting rights throughout the south. Two decades later, similar killers, perhaps organized by a Muslim cleric, assassinated two Americans and one Iraqi in a similar fashion. Different times, different conflicts, but the principles for which these people died — democracy, equality, and freedom — remain the same. In the 1960s, the deaths of Schwerner, Goodman, and Chaney created an uproar that helped unite the country and assisted the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. How many more innocents must Islamofascists kill in Iraq before that same outrage, that same commitment to the spread of freedom, becomes manifest? What will it take for the people of the world, particularly on the American left, to understand that this war is not about oil, U.S. imperialism, or corporate greed — but the very bedrock of democracy, civil rights?
Sometimes You Just Need To Shut Your Pie Hole, Babs.
Boxer isn't happy until the WHOLE world knows what a whining, lying, simpering Lefty she is. Read on.
Sen. Barbara Boxer says she is the real victim of last week's confirmation hearing for Secretary of State-designate Condoleezza Rice, yet continued yesterday to question the national security adviser's honesty. "She turned and attacked me," the California Democrat told CNN's "Late Edition" in describing the confrontation during the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing. "I gave Dr. Rice many opportunities to address specific issues. Instead, she said I was impugning her integrity," Mrs. Boxer said.
Oh, pooooor baby. This broad is out of her skull if she thinks that Condi is just going to sit there and let butthead Barbara or any Democrat insult her integrity without calling them on the issue.
So, butthead Barbara has yet again proven to be another nut job lefty whining when called on maligning a conservatives integrity over innuendo, and outright fabrication of 'facts'. I pity her constituents.
Sen. Barbara Boxer says she is the real victim of last week's confirmation hearing for Secretary of State-designate Condoleezza Rice, yet continued yesterday to question the national security adviser's honesty. "She turned and attacked me," the California Democrat told CNN's "Late Edition" in describing the confrontation during the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing. "I gave Dr. Rice many opportunities to address specific issues. Instead, she said I was impugning her integrity," Mrs. Boxer said.
Oh, pooooor baby. This broad is out of her skull if she thinks that Condi is just going to sit there and let butthead Barbara or any Democrat insult her integrity without calling them on the issue.
So, butthead Barbara has yet again proven to be another nut job lefty whining when called on maligning a conservatives integrity over innuendo, and outright fabrication of 'facts'. I pity her constituents.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
